Stacked Humbuckers Wired as Single Coils

[cpt backfire]

I have a DiMarzio HS-2 as neck pickup on my strat. I've heard that if you wire them as single coils, you get an amazing vintage tone, as Eric Johnson discovered. I've been meaning to do that, but I have no idea what the whole notion of 'wiring a stacked humbucker as a single coil' means. Is one of the coils merely deactivated? And which one - the top coil or bottom coil- should be active? I don't, by any means, plan on doing the wiring myself, but I will need to tell the guitar tech what to do and which coil to do whatever to.

Thanks for your help

 

[fgl]

http://www.dimarzio.com//media/diagrams/B2.pdf

 

[lightice]

I think which coil is used doesn't really matter.

Wiring is like a normal humbucker, the tech will know what to do.
You could put a 3 way toggle to switch between either coil and humbucking mode just to try things out. lol.

You really won't know till you try these things out I guess.

 

[Whitestrat]

I think which coil is used doesn't really matter.

Yes, it does matter. It depends on the humbucker design.

In some cases, both coils are used as "active" coils in the full humbucker, and in some cases, only one coil is an active coil, and the other is a dummy coil.

Also, in many humbuckers, the coils are assymetrically wound, so picking different coils will yield different results.

 

[ShredCow]

This may sound obvious but... email Dimarzio Tech with your query. They usually reply in 1 business day.

 

[cpt backfire]

Many thanks to all of you. I emailed Dimarzio tech and this was their reply:

"The bottom coil (green & white wires) needs to be deactivated. Red is hot, black and bare are grounded. To reverse the phase make black hot and red ground."

Had a techie help me with the mod and she sounds terrific now.